TEN
• • •
Jed drove for nearly fifteen hours before the phone rang. He picked it up and hit the Talk button.
“Patrick.” It was a woman. A voice he did not recognize.
“I’m here.” He’d just left Reno, where he’d stopped for fuel and to get a drink and a hot dog.
“You’re about to enter California.” He already figured there was a GPS tracker in the Fusion. This confirmed it. “In a few miles you’ll pass Floriston. Nothing to it, really. Seven miles after you pass it, you’ll cross the first of four bridges over the Truckee River. Stop before the fourth bridge. There’s a pull-off area. Get out. You’ll know what to do.”
“What does that mean?”
But the woman had already disconnected.
Jed depressed the car’s accelerator a little farther, and the engine whined; the speedometer climbed to eighty. Just as the woman had said, the town of Floriston wasn’t much more than a few porch lights glowing in the darkness of the desert. He pushed the car harder, anxious to get to the location the woman on the phone had described. He had no idea what would be waiting for him there, if anything. The thought had entered his mind and bounced around for the past several hours that Murphy might have sent him on a wild-goose chase, leading him to the desert with no real direction. Jed didn’t like the fact that Murphy knew exactly where he was at all times, but Jed had no idea where Murphy was. And the man had Lilly, so Jed had to take every conversation seriously; he had to treat every interaction, every order, as if his daughter’s life depended on it. He would go along with the woman’s instructions but remain alert. What he currently needed most was the one thing he lacked: information, answers.
He arrived at the fourth bridge just minutes before midnight and parked in a gravel pull-off area a hundred feet from the bridge. He stepped out of the Fusion and leaned against the door. The sky above was clear and dark and full of stars. At this location, Interstate 80 wove through a shallow gorge, cutting across the curves of the Truckee River. A railroad track followed the path of the river. On either side rose walls of rocky soil dotted with pines and scrub brush. The terrain reminded him a lot of Afghanistan. He remembered a night, dark just like this one, quiet just like this one. Stars covered the sky like illuminated grains of sand. Just like this one. He lay in a hole he dug, his rifle across his chest, and thought about how peaceful the night was compared to day. Days were full of gunfire and death, but with most nights came peace and stillness. The nights there were cool, comfortable, a stark contrast from the oppressive heat of the day. But on that particular night, there was nothing peaceful in that hole. Moments later the concussion of gunfire ripped through the silence, and the night became a hell.
Jed blinked and wiped his eyes, ran his hand over his beard. More memories were surfacing from the depths of his psyche. Every day, more images and sounds and emotions came out of hiding. He was rediscovering his past and did not always like what he found. Afghanistan seemed like such a long time ago. A lifetime ago. And yet with the resurgence of memories came the feeling that it had all happened in the not-too-distant past.
Jed yawned and scanned the pull-off, wondering what he was to do now that he was here. There were no streetlamps, so the only illumination came from the dusty starlight that covered the area. His car was the only vehicle in sight.
Then the faint figure of a man emerged from the darkness and made his way across the bridge. At that distance, Jed could not make out any details, but it was obvious the man was not Murphy. He was taller and thinner than Murphy and wore a hooded sweatshirt and tight-fitting jeans. The man crossed the bridge and stopped along the shoulder of the highway. He bent at the knees and placed something on the gravel, a small package about the size of a cereal box.
“Wait,” Jed hollered.
The man kept walking.
“Stop!”
Leaving the Fusion, Jed sprinted along the highway’s shoulder in pursuit. The man also broke into a run. When Jed reached the bridge, he bent and scooped up the package with one hand. It was wrapped in paper and soft. Tucking it under his arm as a running back would a football, he followed the man onto the bridge. A wide shoulder ran the length of the westbound side of the bridge. A cool breeze blew, moving the dry air of the desert over the river gorge.
When Jed hit the bridge, the man had already reached the far side. He looked back at Jed, then stopped, spun, and slipped something from his belt.
Jed knew what it was. There was no mistaking. And even as he shifted to his right and pressed himself against the guardrail, he saw the muzzle flash of a handgun. A round ricocheted off the roadway.
Jed didn’t have time to plan or strategize or even to think. Reflexively, he grabbed for his own handgun and squeezed off a couple rounds in the direction of the deliveryman-turned-assassin.
More shots came his way but all missed the mark. The man had taken cover behind the bridge’s concrete wall and didn’t want to expose himself any more than Jed did.
Having no cover of his own, Jed had to act quickly. The last thing he needed was for a car or truck to pass, witness a shoot-out taking place on the bridge, and call the police. The area would be swarming with law enforcement of every kind and Jed would never get to Lilly. He’d be arrested, questioned, interrogated, exposed. He couldn’t let that happen.
Using darkness as cover, Jed sprinted across all three westbound lanes, zigzagging every several feet, and hopped the concrete wall that protected traffic from careening off the bridge to the river or rail tracks below. He found footing on a three-foot wide ledge that ran the length of the bridge. He crouched low and drew in a deep breath. Then, wasting no time and staying low, he made his way westward, toward the shooter. He could have headed the other direction, gotten off the bridge, and returned to the Fusion, but he needed answers. He needed to disarm the deliveryman and do an interrogation of his own.
Quickly he shuffled along the ledge, expecting at any moment for the shooter to appear just on the other side of the wall and fire off a few point-blank rounds. But the shooter never appeared. Jed reached the west end of the bridge and peeked above the wall. There was no sign of the man.
• • •
Stepan Levkin hadn’t counted on Patrick pursuing him. He should have. It was his mistake to underestimate the man. Stepan knew Patrick’s history; he knew the training Patrick had gone through, the missions he’d been on. He’d briefly read Patrick’s psychological profile. The man didn’t give up. And Stepan should have anticipated this.
But he hadn’t and now he’d have to confront Patrick. That wasn’t part of the plan. It wasn’t part of his orders. His order in Denver was to pin Patrick down; his order here was merely to deliver the package. He’d killed plenty of men over the past several years, but Patrick was not to be one of those marks. Stepan could have shot Patrick as he crouched along the guardrail; he could have put several rounds in him as he raced across the highway. But he didn’t. He’d missed intentionally, carefully placing each shot to herd Patrick like a sheepdog moving a flock. Orders were orders, and he’d been trained to always follow orders.
When Patrick made a run for the west end of the bridge, Stepan had slinked back off the road’s shoulder and taken refuge in an outcropping of rocks. He’d use the darkness and rocks for cover as he waited for Patrick to find him. He might have been ordered to not kill Patrick, but there was nothing said about not injuring him.
• • •
Jed moved slowly, cautiously. He needed to get off the bridge. It was midnight, sure, but Interstate 80 was no ghost road. Vehicles still traveled it even in the middle of the night, and one was bound to come into view at any moment. He peeked above the concrete barrier but saw no one. Quickly he hopped the wall, gun raised and ready to jump into action, and scurried back across the three lanes heading west. As he reached the far shoulder of the highway, a pair of headlights rounded the corner ahead. Still grasping the package, Jed jumped the guardrail and lay flat along the gravel shoulder of the road.
He was hidden from the road but exposed to the shooter. He needed to move, to get out of there, to find cover. The vehicle, a big rig, lumbered by. The ground vibrated beneath it. As soon as it passed, Jed scrambled to his feet.
He never saw the blow coming.
At first he thought he’d been shot. His head snapped forward as lightning exploded in his vision. He dropped the package, and his gun clattered away as he slumped and fell to his knees, then his hands. The earth seemed to move under him. He knew he had to move, that remaining still like that was an invitation to die, but his limbs would not cooperate. It was as if the thought had originated in his brain as it should, but the signals weren’t making it to his muscles.
Another blow came, this time to his flank, along the left side of his ribs. He exhaled forcefully. The blow had knocked him off his hands and feet and planted him on his right side in the dirt. He gasped to fill his lungs with air, but it was as if his chest had become encased in concrete.
Jed’s head spun. He needed to move. He rolled over to his stomach, then to his back. He kept rolling until he felt as though he had put some distance between him and his attacker. But the sound of footsteps shuffling in the dirt and gravel was soon upon him once again.
This time Jed saw the strike coming and lifted an arm to block it. The man was on him then, throwing punches one after another. Jed did his best to block them, but too many slipped through and pummeled him in his chest and head area.
Jed did the only thing he could think to do. He reached up and grabbed the man’s shirt with both hands, then mustered every bit of strength he had left to yank the man toward him. Jed had gravity on his side, and the force of his forehead contacting his attacker’s face was enough to momentarily make the man’s body go limp. Long enough for Jed to push him off and stagger to his feet.
Though his head ached and though his ribs burned, enough adrenaline had made it into his bloodstream to clear Jed’s head and give him the burst of strength he needed to go on the offensive. He advanced even as the shooter climbed to his feet. The man’s face was bloodied from nose to chin and his eyes were glazed as if he’d just awakened from an anesthesia-induced nap. He sidestepped and raised his arms.
Jed lunged. The man blocked his advance and delivered a punch aimed at Jed’s head. Jed blocked it and countered with an elbow that landed on the man’s chin. At once he followed it with a blow to the man’s abdomen and another elbow to his cheekbone. The shooter stumbled backward and nearly lost his footing. Jed didn’t give him one moment to regroup. He moved in and shoved his palm toward his opponent’s face, but the man deflected the advance and stepped into Jed’s forward motion, catching Jed in the chest with a hard elbow.
Fatigue had set in and Jed felt his reaction time slowing. His lungs burned; pain pierced his chest wall. He needed to end this.
Groping at his attacker’s flailing arms, he finally found the man’s wrist and grasped it. Twisting forcefully, Jed positioned the man’s arm over his shoulder, hyperextending his elbow. The man groaned and snarled. He knew what was coming but with his muscles stretched so far could not muster the strength to resist. Jed snapped down, breaking the man’s arm.
His opponent hollered in Russian, a weak bawl that signified surrender. But with one last stand, he raised his foot and shoved the sole of his boot into Jed’s hip, pushing him back and knocking him off-balance.
Under the bridge, a passenger train sped by, silent save for the quick rhythmic clickity-clack of the wheels on the rails.
As Jed recovered, the man took off running toward the bridge, his arm bent at a grotesque angle. Jed pursued, but no sooner did he reach the edge of the bridge than his opponent, now nearly halfway across, jumped the concrete wall that separated the westbound lanes from the gorge below. At first Jed thought the man had jumped for the train and wondered how he could ever find an escape on the smooth roof of the speeding passenger cars, but when he arrived at the location where the man went over the edge, he found him in the rapidly moving Truckee River below, on his back, flailing his good arm to remain above water.
Jed walked back to the spot where he was first assaulted to retrieve the package and find his gun. A low ridge of rock ran along the length of the highway. Jed climbed it quickly and slid down the opposite side so he would be out of sight of any traffic that might pass. It was there that he sat, panting, bracing his ribs with both arms, running scenarios through his mind. Nothing made sense. Why would the man do a Mary Poppins off the bridge? Why did he physically attack Jed and not just shoot him? He was close enough; he could have squeezed off one round and taken Jed out. Why didn’t he? And why did he speak in Russian?
Jed grabbed the phone from his pocket and checked the history of calls. Murphy had called him back in Denver and then outside Floriston. He called the number from which those calls had come.
A woman answered. Not the same woman who had given him the instructions about the bridge. “Patrick?”
“Get me Murphy.”
“He’s sleeping.”
Anger pushed its way into Jed’s chest. “I don’t care. Wake him up.”
“Just a moment.”
Minutes passed and nothing happened. Questions bombarded Jed’s mind. There were no answers, of course; there never were. The anger built within him, a pot of boiling water now bubbling over. Finally, just as he was about to think Murphy would not disturb his sleep to speak with him, a gravelly voice came on the phone.
“Patrick. Where are you?”
“At the bridge. You sent me here.”
“Yeah. What time . . . ? Yes, I did. Did you get the package?”
“Your man is gone.”
There was a brief pause on the other end. “Gone. What do you mean gone?”
The sleep cobwebs had clouded his thinking.
“Gone. He jumped off the bridge.”
“What?” Murphy’s voice had suddenly cleared. “How? What did you do?”
“I went after him; we exchanged shots; we fought; he jumped. Who was he?”
“You were to pick up the package. That’s it.” Anger laced Murphy’s voice.
“I want answers.”
“He didn’t have them.”
“Why didn’t he kill me?”
“Because he was following his orders. His job was to deliver the package. Your job was to retrieve it.”
“I need more than a package.”
Murphy said, “Open it and follow the instructions.”
“Murphy, don’t you hang up on me. I need answers. Why did he jump? Why didn’t he kill me? Where’s my daughter?”
“Open the package and do as it says. That’s it; that’s all you’re getting.”
“Murphy —”
“Patrick —” his voice was calm again, quiet —“we’ve had enough damage done already over this. We don’t need any more. This is bigger than you and your questions. It’s bigger than your daughter and your wife. But for the sake of everyone, open the package. Do as it says.”
He ended the call.
Jed shoved the phone back in his pocket, tucked the package under his arm, and crossed the bridge along the shoulder, back to the parking lot and the Fusion.
In the car he slumped in the seat and drew in a long, shuddering breath. The adrenaline was wearing off, bringing back the ache in his head, a persistent throbbing that felt like a kick drum keeping a steady rhythm on the inside of his skull. He closed his eyes and focused his thoughts on the present situation. There was much he had no control over, but there were a few things he could still manage. One was whatever was in the package.
Carefully, so as not to disturb the contents, he ripped through the paper.
Inside was a long-sleeved collared polo shirt, a folded ball cap, an ID badge, and a map. Written on the back of the map were instructions to be at Pier 33 in San Francisco at twelve. He was to get on the noon ferry.
Jed checked out the ID badge. It had his photo on it, an older one, but it still looked like him, and across the top it read: Official Tour Guide, US National Park Service, Alcatraz Island.
The map contained a diagram of the prison. A door was circled in red and a five-digit number scribbled beside it.
Jed placed the objects on the seat next to him and checked his watch. 12:40. He had eleven and a half hours to get to San Francisco.
His destination was Alcatraz.